WASHINGTON — The United States on Tuesday expressed serious concerns over the growing relationship between Burma and North Korea, as a top Obama administration official told lawmakers that the US is closely monitoring the activities of the two countries.
Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said that the major source of concern is Pyongyang's continuing efforts to provide weapons to Burma's ruling military junta.
“In the past, most of North Korea's proliferation activities have affected the Middle East. But in the recent period they have increased substantially, we believe, the provision of certain conventional technologies—small arms and also some missile components—to Burma in strict and clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” Campbell said.
Responding to a question from Sen Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the committee, Campbell described Burma-North Korea ties as “a subject of enormous concern.”
He added that the US has “worked closely with a number of countries in Southeast Asia to assist us in establishing a greater degree of confidence about illicit transfers, largely by ship, coming from North Korea.”
Curtailing arms shipments to Burma “is at the top of our list in terms of our overall concerns,” said Campbell, who admitted that despite some successes, blocking Pyongyang has been “an enormously challenging problem and in fact North Korea in many of these areas has demonstrated itself that they are a determined proliferator.”
Campbell's remarks come as a recent report detailed some of the dangers of allowing Burma to expand its arsenal of sophisticated weapons with North Korean assistance.
According to veteran Burma watcher Bertil Lintner, the Burmese junta's Directorate of Defense Industries is already developing long-range Scud-type missiles with North Korean assistance at a munitions factory near Minhla, a small town south of Minbu in Magway Division.
“A Scud-armed Myanmar [Burma] would place its capabilities a significant notch above its Southeast Asian neighbors, which do not possess such long-range missiles,” wrote Lintner in a report for Asia Times online.
“The revelations could spark a regional arms race, prompting neighboring countries such as Thailand to develop or procure their own missile arsenal.”
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